Minnie’s Musings

We are now trundling down South, passing through a small station called Barlaston without stoping. Not sure how far we have got but the brilliant blue sunshine of the North is giving way to a bitty snow storm which is doing its best to settle. The flakes are mean and small, rather than the big fluffy ones that ensure a soft blanket which muffles all sound and confounds the cat.

I am now thinking whether I will be able to get into work tomorrow morning, to teach my two hours of functional skills Maths. There are at least two very steep hills between me and my classroom, so I am hoping the gritters are already out and about doing their stuff. At a previous school I had ‘”can’t possibly” pacts with colleagues coming in from the same neck of the woods. If one of us couldn’t manage the hills, then no one could.

I am reminded of that point during first lockdown when the first of my colleagues clocked that ‘snow days’ would become a thing of the past, due to online classrooms and Google Meet. Most schools, however, think laterally. They realize that transferring learning to a screen from face to face requires time so departments put together a bank of resources that students can access.

The likelihood of students accessing said resources can be a tad remote. However I am loathe to deprive young people and children of an opportunity to launch themselves down a precipitous slope on a plastic sled or baking tray (as needs must). For those of us who reside South of the Watford Gap, snow is such a rarity that we should enjoy it. A day of fresh air, pink cheeks and hot chocolate does no one any harm. .